As fans of C.W. McCall, we've all pictured in our minds the image of a "thousand screamin' trucks" as they neared the end of the mighty "Convoy". But exactly how many trucks can you fit into a convoy? Ten? One hundred? Two hundred?

Last year on June 27, the
Orange County Sheriff
(Orlando, Florida) sponsored a fund-raising event for the Special Olympics: an attempt to create The World's Largest Truck Convoy. Corporal Norm Schneiderhan, a deputy sheriff, organized the 2001 event, which raised $17,000. Ninety-seven trucks participated in the convoy, and
Guinness World Records
has recognized the event as the record in a new category.

For 2002, Schneiderhan is once again organizing the event, scheduled for July 20. The convoy will begin at the intersections of Florida state highways 434 and 408 (East-West Expressway), in the Waterford Lakes Shopping Center, and travel 16 miles west to the Central Florida Fairgrounds for a barbecue and prize give-away. The East-West Expressway will be completely shut down for the duration of the Convoy.

For information: download
this brochure
(PDF, 308K); or call 407.836.8675 (Corporal Schneiderhan's office; e-mail to norm.schneiderhan@ocfl.net) or the Special Olympics of Florida at 800.322.4376.

A while back on the
Other Wild Places
mailing list, there was a discussion of custom CDs of C.W. McCall music, and what would you put on yours?
Mark Landis
told of his selections, and
Ken Thompson
added a few songs to that list and created his own mix CDs. Ken also created inserts for the CDs, and if you want to recreate Ken's selections, download the
inserts
(PDF, 596K) and make your own CDs.

A small trip through salt mine city:
a page in Russian
about the song "Convoy". The song lyrics are in English (just guess where this page's author got them), but the remainder of the page is definitely Cyrillic. For the trivia-minded, "convoy" in Russian is spelled something like "KOHBON" (the "N" is actually reversed left-to-right, with a
breve
above it).

By the way,
Dave Dudley
has a new album of trucker-only tunes:
American Trucker. It's been available since last November, but we're just getting around to mentioning it.

Mike Nicolen, whose CD "Mike Nicolen" was reviewed here (The Legend-News, 2002 October 8), is feeling a bit down due the death of Waylon Jennings, and we're not feeling too good ourselves. However, Mike liked our review (of course) and he's added it to
his web site.

And
Eric Williams
was wondering, "what's the most underrated song by C.W. McCall?" that should have been a 'greatest hit' but isn't. His choices were "Wilderness", followed by "Glenwood Canyon" and "Old 30".
Greg Hembree
votes for "Old Glory", while the staff of
The Legend-News
picks "Oregon Trail".

[C.W.]
Southern Pottawattamie County, actually. Up there by Council Bluffs? She's an Omaha girl.

[T. Tommy]
This story about "Write Me A Song": now the title of this sounds like something Tom T. Hall would write.

[C.W.]
Well, it's a pretty simple little song, kinda one of those ones that you can sing along with. But it doesn't go too much of anywhere; it's one that we put on the album because we write all of our own material, but now we're askin' for new material from other writers, so that's what it says: write me a song, but don't write me a sad song. Write me a song that's well, you gotta listen to the record.

[T. Tommy]
You're seriously lookin' for someone to write you another one.

[C.W.]
We're doin' all ourselves, but there's gonna come a time when we're gonna need some help. So if you're gonna write me a song, write it this way.

Most musical acts don't write all of the material that they perform. The members of the act may pen a song or two, and fill the remainder of an album with compositions from professional songwriters. Even James Taylor, one of the best examples of the singer/songwriter, didn't write all of the songs that he recorded.

All of the compositions on the first four albums by C.W. McCall (Wolf Creek Pass, Black Bear Road, Wilderness, Rubber Duck) were written by Bill Fries and Chip Davis. As this week's installment of Old Home Café indicates, Bill realized that he couldn't write every song. But he was going to record songs that were written by others, he wasn't going to settle for the standard country themes of drinkin' and cheatin'.